I tried a variety of tracks and file formats, but the real differentiator was successfully playing Deep Purple’s Time for Bedlam track from the Infinite album. The criteria here was to listen to my music in its native format and original quality, from the capable renderers around my home. I’m not going to score them any different, they all run on the Synology NAS, so they all score 1 point. MinimServer (v0.8 and 2.0 all variants)Īll of the music servers tested can run on a Synology NAS, some of them are installed from the default app store, others need additional repositories adding, and some can only run in docker.Here are the UPnP/DLNA music servers being tested: I want the server software to be low cost, ideally free.I want to see album/artist/genre art for my library within the controller.I want to be able to browse and search my library using the controller.I want to listen to my music in its native format and original quality, from the renderers mentioned above.

I want to run the music server on my NAS, a Synology DS3615xs.

There is no weighting to these requirements, they each get one point for every requirement satisfied: So without further a do, here are my requirements. I’m using Hi-Fi Cast as the controller (which i highly recommend), running on a wireless android tablet. For testing, the renderers i will be using are a Yamaha MusicCast stereo, a Sony TV and a Windows PC. This guide will only address the server component.

UPnP/DLNA has three components, the server, the renderer and the controller. Some of the music servers tested also serve video and photos and fall into the media server category, which is great but I’m only testing their merits on serving audio.įirst some terminology to get your head around. This review has been written by a tech enthusiast, not an audiophile, with my own personal requirements in mind, but since i went to great lengths testing every possible UPnP/DLNA Music Server i could find, i thought you might also benefit from my conclusions.

Universal media server synology